The Primal Hunter Chapter 1255 - Taking Turns

The Labyrinth Master eyed Casper briefly while adjusting the gunlance gripped in his hand, then raised it high and aimed straight at the Risen. The weapon burst forth immediately, unleashing a tremendous shockwave along with a bullet that Casper dodged just in time, thanks to Lyra's aid.

Midway through his evasion, the boss flickered into view, employing the identical movement technique as the Marksmen to materialize directly behind the Risen. Thrusting ahead, Casper found himself with no option but to absorb the strike, letting the blade pass through his form. Though infused with energy from the gunlance, the damage proved tolerable despite its evident impact.

In an effort to retaliate, Casper surged with curse energy, causing numerous chains to materialize from nowhere and attempt to bind the B-grade; yet, a disruptive shockwave exploded from the boss's body, shredding the chains before they could fully form. Even the partially summoned cursed stakes splintered apart, forcing Casper to stagger backward with a pained grunt.

Before he could regain his footing, yet another bullet from the gunlance impacted him, phasing through once again, but midway it detonated into a blaze of fire that hurled the Risen tumbling away.

Assaults of pure energy remained highly potent against his ethereal state, and these flames posed a grave threat, compelling the Risen to fall back while he conjured traps behind him.

The Labyrinth Master pursued relentlessly, triggering every trap simultaneously. Curse magic burst forth from every direction around the B-grade, with some portions aiming to strike and others merely to hinder. Apparently unable to rely on another shockwave, the boss had to break free through more direct means.

In his free hand, away from the gunlance, the Labyrinth Master called forth a sword and sliced through the tangle of chains and cursed energies, swiftly liberating himself, though luckily for Casper, this delay allowed the Risen to widen the gap between them.

Forming several hand signs, Casper caused magic circles to emerge behind him as shadowy barriers of curse energy started encircling the boss. With a fierce shout, the boss emitted a second mana shockwave that scattered Casper’s spell, enabling the B-grade to effortlessly slash through the incomplete walls and rush toward the Risen anew.

Casper found himself totally dominated as the boss rained down a relentless flurry of strikes that the Risen could scarcely counter beyond enduring them. His sparse attempts at fighting back were either dispelled or inflicted no harm, clearly signaling the boss as the inevitable victor.

Naturally, this presumed Casper battled solo. He had deliberately confronted the boss alone to foster overconfidence and blind him to any other threats. When Jake at last prepared to loose his arrow, he signaled the Risen discreetly, prompting Casper to feign a frantic assault.

Channeling a vast surge of curse energy, Casper bombarded the B-grade with a flood of tiny stakes that the boss deflected with ease by erecting a blue mana shield. A sliver of the curse energy seeped past regardless, but it only marginally eroded the Labyrinth Master’s barriers. Normally insignificant since Casper could hardly wound him anyway, this subtle breach would soon reveal its true significance.

The Labyrinth Master never saw it coming.

Utterly absorbed in clashing with Casper and the swirling curse energy, he overlooked the Arcane Powershot fired by the concealed hunter lurking far in the rear. Mere instants before impact, he grasped that he faced not one but two adventurers.

Jake’s Arcane Powershot slammed into the Labyrinth Master’s back, targeted precisely beneath his right shoulder where flesh rather than metal lay. The Eternal Hunger arrowhead plunged deep into the B-grade’s form, and thanks to the Protean Arrow’s clever construction, the shaft collapsed inward, embedding the tip securely.

The arrow’s loaded energy and toxins crashed into the B-grade’s rear, hurling blood and shards of metal outward as the Labyrinth Master cried out in sharp agony. His back ripped open in a flash, and witnessing this, Casper seized the opportunity without pause.

Leaping ahead without delay, he retrieved a unique cursed stake from his inventory. Pouring every ounce of strength, he drove it into the Labyrinth Master’s shoulder via the gash Jake’s arrow had carved, and as it connected, a rush of curse energy got sucked through the stake directly into the deeply embedded Eternal Hunger.

The legendary weapon eagerly devoured this added power, invigorating as it swiftly siphoned the B-grade’s inner energies. Jake pressed the advantage, lining up to trigger Rapid Fire while exploiting the boosted damage from his Supreme Stealth Attack, determined to maximize the harm.

Yet, for all the flawless teamwork from the two C-grades, the B-grade dungeon boss remained a formidable B-grade entity. Casper, fresh from deploying his stake, wasn’t prepared when the B-grade lunged and seized his shoulder, having shifted to solid form for the strike.

Casper struggled to break loose, but the boss’s ironclad hold ripped into his flesh, claws piercing skin to clamp onto bone. Powerless to resist, the Risen got yanked before the boss, who then fired a laser from his mechanical eye.

The beam lanced through Casper’s temple and out the opposite side, the boss utterly indifferent, even as another arrow buried into his back, eliciting only a mere grunt. His attention locked solely on eliminating the pesky Risen, he wasted no further moments.

Maintaining his grasp on Casper, the Labyrinth Master impaled him on the gunlance and hoisted it overhead before pulling the trigger. Instead of one shot, the weapon spewed a volley of shrapnel that ravaged the Risen’s body, shredding it to bits.

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Jake observed Casper explode into fragments, limbs and gore scattering wildly. Despite two additional arrows hitting the boss and injecting more poison while inflicting further injury, the Labyrinth Master leisurely lobbed a grenade skyward, detonating the remnants of the demolished Risen.

As the haze dissipated, the boss emerged, his back savagely mangled and over two dozen arrows protruding from his frame. Jake’s rapid fire had raged nonstop, wearing the foe down considerably.

Now, with Casper apparently erased, the boss whirled to confront the hunter. He raised an energy barrier to halt Jake’s arrows, yet they arced around it as two more embedded themselves. Staggering in torment, he groaned before speaking again.

“You are powerful, adventurers. Unsurprising, considering you managed to get all the way here,” the Labyrinth Master declared, Jake bypassing any wonder over why the boss ignored the recent events, evidently bound to some preordained lines.

“However, your efforts are still in vain. I had hoped to avoid doing this, but you have proven yourself worthy of witnessing the power of this Labyrinth Master!” the ultimate boss bellowed, his eyes flaring open wide.

Jake courteously replied by embedding four more arrows into the cyborg during his monologue, at last marking his front with injuries, though these seemed to inflict reduced harm compared to earlier ones. Indeed, the boss appeared under a heavy passive dungeon-mitigation effect amid this shift to phase two, as Jake sensed his poison weakening too.

The boss’s power surge persisted, the whole chamber vibrating with his aura. Glowing runes illuminated the floor tiles, while enchanted inscriptions sprawled across every wall. Jake swiftly verified the boss room’s exit stayed accessible... for the moment. But the Labyrinth Master’s subsequent action threatened to alter that swiftly.

Underfoot, the tiles shifted with a profound groan, and the surrounding outer walls began contracting inward, narrowing the space. Initially, that is, until Jake glanced upward and noticed the walls curving down to form a dome.

At that instant, while the metamorphosis continued, Jake detected the boss’s damage reduction fading, and the Labyrinth Master raised his gunlance, directing it at Jake.

Before the arm fully ascended, Jake fired back with an arrow, delivering a proactive strike just as the gunlance discharged. A rapid bullet hurtled at Jake, compelling him to sidestep while firing a hasty return shot.

They traded several distant volleys, but soon both recognized that at this distance, Jake held the upper hand in combat. Nonetheless, the Labyrinth Master clearly aimed not to dominate this skirmish but to stall, as the arena kept constricting and tiles ascended on metallic pillars.

Content at last, the B-grade struck decisively. Raising his off-hand from the gunlance, he gestured at Jake as ceiling sections twisted and a wall fragment intercepted one of Jake’s arrows.

Upon striking the barrier, Jake realized it was genuine Grand Labyrinth material. Thus, his arrow barely scratched it. The substance was undoubtedly too resilient even for B-grades to harm, and this boss wielding it so freely... well, classic final dungeon boss antics were evident.

Two further wall segments descended on Jake, but their sluggish pace let him evade promptly. As Jake darted away, the Labyrinth Master surged to cut him off, brandishing his familiar gunlance plus a sword in his left grip.

The B-grade’s movement ability shone impressively, giving Jake scant time to duck a sweeping sword arc, trailed by a flurry of gunlance thrusts—two firing bullets mid-strike.

He sought to retaliate, but the elevating tiles constricted the terrain as walls dropped everywhere, forging a controlled enclosure under the Labyrinth Master’s command, which he exploited masterfully.

Jake grappled nonstop with obstructive walls and erratic rising platforms, the uneven floor aiding the boss with launch points that rendered his assault rhythm elusive, if not impossible to predict.

To the boss’s misfortune, Jake proved exceptionally tough to deceive, and though his thoughts occasionally lagged, his reflexes didn’t. Jake concentrated purely on evasion, ignoring counterstrikes, aware they’d yield nothing substantial.

Melee engagement wasn’t viable either, with Jake possessing just one katar. Eternal Hunger remained buried in the gaping back wound of the B-grade, alongside the protruding cursed stake. The curse inflicted ongoing harm, and paired with the poison corroding the Labyrinth Master’s vitals, Jake eroded his foe’s strength passively. The toxins might wane without fresh doses, but Jake viewed this defensive lull as fleeting.

Jake kept withdrawing in full defense, orbiting the ever-dwindling battlefield. The round arena had spanned over twenty kilometers initially, now reduced to about ten, shrinking further each instant. Jake had steered his dodges toward the edges, preserving the arena’s core intact.

Armed with bow and single katar, Jake parried select attacks, Fangs of Man enabling him to manage with the blade, yet his bow-wielding arm endured heavy strain. Thankfully, the bow’s toughness defied B-grade destruction, but treating it as a close-quarters tool fell short.

To adapt, Jake wove in abundant magic, deploying Pride and conjuring endless lightning bolts plus detonating arcane spheres. Though harmless, they clouded sight and occasionally provoked overreactions from the B-grade, granting Jake brief respites.

Still, amid Jake’s best endeavors, the arena’s hazards rendered total avoidance impossible. Deliberately timed walls and platforms impeded him at critical junctures, landing him occasional light injuries.

Clenching his jaw, Jake risked a bold play, narrowly evading a sword slash before closing with his Voidblade Katar. Targeting a soft spot, he unleashed Piercing Fang. Less potent sans Eternal Hunger, it sufficed to spill blood. More crucially, it let Jake detonate the infused energy, blasting himself rearward from the foe.

This propelled him toward the arena’s heart, where faint traces lingered from Casper’s earlier explosion. Predictably, the boss pursued to maintain pressure.

Employing One Step, Jake teleported back, the boss in hot pursuit via his blurring speed skill that rendered him blisteringly swift. Fixated on Jake, he crossed the spot of the Risen’s prior demise... precisely as intended.

In phase one, Jake had delivered his potent stealth blow while Casper absorbed punishment.

Now, their positions flipped, and Casper’s turn arrived to demonstrate the potency of his vaunted single-target cursing prowess to Jake. The dissipating essence of the obliterated Risen abruptly intensified, a malediction aura stirring as the Labyrinth Master crossed into the trap’s activation zone.